


Pleasure Cruise

by dogfighter3000



Series: Fluff, Angst, and General Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Humor, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Minor Angst, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Sam Wilson Is Badass, Tumblr Prompt, although the fluff is less in your face and more like, is that pre slash?, the inherent homoeroticism of tugging your battle buddy in close and saving his life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:53:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogfighter3000/pseuds/dogfighter3000
Summary: More interesting than all of that, though, when Bucky can finally drag his eyes from where Sam is bashing one of the HYDRA agents head into a control panel, is the gaping hole in the side of the ship that’s gushing in hundreds of gallons of water by the minute.“For once, this actually isn’t my fault!” Sam yells out over the roar of rushing water and machine alarms blaring in the cavernous sub basement of the engine room.(one-liner prompt #3 "For once, this actually isn’t my fault.”)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Series: Fluff, Angst, and General Prompt Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178573
Comments: 6
Kudos: 110





	Pleasure Cruise

**Author's Note:**

> I used one-liner prompt #3 from One Liner Prompt list #11 by write-it-motherfuckers on tumblr and the title of the chapter is from Pleasure Cruise by The Scary Jokes

“Where’s the Falcon?”

“I think he went down to the basement to take out the schmucks in the engine room.”

“No wonder his comms are out, that’s way deep below the surface. Anybody got a visual on him?”

“Hard to focus on killing nazis with all this chatter,” Bucky gripes over the endless stream of noise in his ear. Through the scope of his gun he takes out another three HYDRA agents from where he’s perched in the beams of the control room. One last quick scan of the room proves he’s taken out any remaining agents and he swings down from the ceiling, combat boots landing heavily onto what used to be somebody’s computer “Control room’s clean. Nobody got out and I’m downloading the intel now. How’s it look up top?”

“Deck is clean, Widow’s managed to take a few heavy hitters hostage and the rest of the team’s cleaning out the remaining HYDRA operatives in the last few floors of the ship,” Steve reports back, the sound of his shield rebounding off heavy steel support beams audible in the background.

“Say, Soldier, the control room’s awful close to the engine room,” Stark muses, just that specific tone of his voice is enough to make Bucky’s eye twitch. Nothing good ever comes from that tone of voice. “Why don’t you go check on your bestie and make sure he hasn’t been sent to Davy Jones’ locker for us?”

“Wilson doesn’t need a babysitter,” Bucky grumbles, yanking the drive out of the large computer at the front of the lab a bit harder than necessary. “And I didn’t spend nearly seventy-five years as a sniper to shadow a grown man fully capable of taking care of himself.”

“Ooh, better watch it, Eeyore. That almost sounded like a compliment for a second there!” Tony shoots back, a smarmy grin obvious in his voice.

“Tony, lay off. We’re trying to complete a mission here,” The full brunt of Steve’s disappointed parent voice is enough to make Clint snort and Tony even more insufferable than normal.

“Tony?? What happened to only using our super cool code names on missions, huh Cap?” Tony starts.

Bucky’s almost glad that descending the stairs into the sub basement of the ship causes his comms to start breaking up before going completely silent. It’s the first bit of peace he’s gotten since they first got the information that there was a floating HYDRA base on a cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic. That is, it’s peaceful until he tugs open the heavy metal door to the engine room and water comes rushing out, crashing into his shins and nearly sweeping him off his feet.

There, in between the hulking machinery that lines the guts of the ship the Avengers are currently aboard, is none other than Sam Wilson and three livid HYDRA agents engaging in hand-to-hand combat. He’s a force to be reckoned with, the way he dodges and blocks one attacker, shoving them aside before attacking somebody else. His method of fighting isn’t the graceful, almost musical methods Natasha uses, nor is it the full-bodied, head-on approach that Steve takes with almost everything. Sam is in a class of his own. Confident and sure in his movements with an awareness of his surroundings that he uses to his advantage.

More interesting than all of that, though, when Bucky can finally drag his eyes from where Sam is bashing one of the HYDRA agents head into a control panel, is the gaping hole in the side of the ship that’s gushing in hundreds of gallons of water by the minute.

“For once, this actually isn’t my fault!” Sam yells out over the roar of rushing water and machine alarms blaring in the cavernous sub basement of the engine room. 

“What did you do?!” Bucky yells back in horror, the once ankle-deep water now rising towards his knees. It’s awkward, wading over to where Sam is still fending off the remaining two agents, but the sooner they can get out of there the better.

“I JUST said it’s not my fault!” Sam laughs, letting Bucky knock out the agent behind him with the butt of his gun as he hit the one in front of him with a hard right hook. “I think my comms are broken, can you contact the team? Let ‘em know we gotta blow this popsicle stand, and fast?”

“Your comms’ not broke, we’re too deep for them to work. We’ve gotta go further up before they can hear us,” Bucky wraps an arm around Sam’s shoulder, letting him fly them over to the door to the stairwell the sea water is leaking into. “Seriously, what did you do??”

“I told you-” He drops Bucky unceremoniously into the water rising around the metal staircase, rolling his eyes as he does so. “This wasn’t my fault! There was a total beast of a man down here, shooting this huge laser gun all over the place! I’m surprised he didn’t punch even more holes into the damn thing.”

“D’you mean that guy??” Bucky points over Sam’s shoulder to the guy he’d mashed face-first into a control panel. At some point, in the time it had taken them to take out the other two agents and head for the stairs, he’d stumbled back to his feet and found his gun in the rising ocean water. Sam turns as the man waddles to the side of the ship where the water’s pouring forth.

“Man, you gotta be kidding me,” Sam groans.

“You’ll never defeat HYDRA!” The guy screams over the din of rushing water. “You cut off one head, two more shall-!”

“Bro, shut the fuck up!” Sam yells back, pulling out one of his pistols from his belt.

Though, before he can draw his weapon, the HYDRA worker’s hefted his large, alien-looking blaster to his shoulder and hit the trigger. With an explosion of hot, white light, he tears open the hole in the ship to nearly quadruple its original size. The increased water pressure does the job of taking out the last remaining HYDRA agent, but it has the added effect of greatly speeding up the rate at which the hull fills.

“You couldn’t have taken him out before he turned this ship into a giant sinking tombstone??” Bucky sputters as he shakes the freezing sea water from his hair and starts quickly ascending the stairs. Not far behind him, Sam scoffs.

“There was damn near forty dudes down there! Half of ‘em armed and the other half jacked from shoveling coal all day or whatever the fuck it is they do on boats! We’re lucky I’m not sleeping with the fishes right now.”

“I think that’s trains.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I think the shoveling coal thing is for trains!”

“That is SO not the point, Barnes!”

“Oh, good. Tweedle dum and tweedle idiot didn’t kill each other down there,” Tony hums into the crackling of the comms.

They’ve scaled three flights of stairs so far, finally free from the oppressive pressure of the deep sub basement of the ship, but the water’s flooding in and fast. Despite the speed at which they both are climbing the stairs, the water’s not far behind them. If they had waited to leave the engine room any longer than they did they might have had to swim their way out.

“This is taking too damn long, can’t you use those wings of yours and fly us the fuck out of here?” Bucky grunts, ignoring Stark’s unwanted commentary. Superhuman or not, even Bucky’s gonna be winded after sprinting up twenty flights of stairs. He can’t imagine how Sam will be fairing, seeing as how he’s breathing heavy by the fifth set.

“Can’t. Stairwell’s too narrow for my wings,” Sam pants, nearly slipping on the slick stairs as a spray of sea water crashes into the wall. “Don’t you think I would’a flown the hell outta here already if I could?”

“God dammit, the one time your freaky bird wings could come in handy!” Bucky groans, metal arm crunching the railing beneath it as he turns to take the Falcon’s hand, tugging him forward. “C’mon, if you trip and drown I’ll never hear the end of it from Steve.”

“Drown?”

“Uh, last time I checked the water’s on the outside of the boat, boys.”

“What the hell do you mean, drown, Buck??” 

Immediately loud, overlapping chatter erupts over the comms. Their teammates flood them with dozens of questions, the intensity of which is only rivaled by the literal flood licking at the back of Bucky’s boots. Cursing under his breath at not informing the team the first chance he got, Bucky opens his mouth to explain the situation when a horrible creaking noise reverberates through the entire ship. It vibrates up the walls and floors, nearly knocking both Sam and Bucky off their feet. The comms have gone deathly silent.

“What. Did you two. Do.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Cap! I swear!” Sam immediately argues, turning around to tug Bucky out from where he’s now hip deep in the water.

“Bucky??”

“I didn’t do it either!” Bucky tries not to sound like he’s defensive but he’s sure it falls a little flat when he hears Clint snort. “I walked into the engine room to find this idiot takin’ on three guys at once while half the ocean’s floodin’ in through a huge gash in the side of the boat.”

“Oh, like you could have done any better, Barnes-” Sam starts, glaring over his shoulder as they round the tenth flight of stairs onto the eleventh.

“Hmm, why does that sound familiar?” Natasha hums, clearly amused.

“Awww, looks like our good ol’ Capitan is rubbing off on Wilson!” Tony coos.

“Steve’s doing WHAT on Wilson??” Clint yells back, laughter evident in his voice.

“Would you three stop it??” It’s plain that Steve’s embarrassed now, and from the hunch of his shoulders, Bucky can tell Sam is too.

“You gotta admit that's the kind of reckless shit you do, like, all the time, Capsicle,” Tony hums, making the man in question splutter defensively.

From all around them, another ominous creak rumbles the metal walls of the ship. Sam and Bucky go careening into the side rail of the stairs. Sam nearly flips right over it and into the dark, crushing water below until Bucky darts out to grab him. With an arm wrapped around Sam’s waist, pulling him in close, they wait for the walls around them to stop shaking.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam wheezes, squinting in the red flashing of the emergency lights that had come on halfway through the tremors. 

“The front half of the boat is starting to lift out of the water. She’s going down,” Tony informs them, the sound of his repulsors whistling in the background as he flies from the top deck out to survey the situation. 

“Is everybody out from below deck, yet?” Steve’s back together, captain voice in full force as he addresses the team.

“Clint and I finished up with the remaining HYDRA agents a couple minutes ago and helped Bruce secure the operatives in the quinjet,” Natasha informs.

“Falcon, Soldier, what’s your position?” Steve barks. In the background Bucky can hear the sound of the quinjet booting up, the fans whining as they pick up speed. 

The tilt of the ship has made standing there on the stairs awkward, their bodies pressed against the railing. It’s going to make the last remaining sets of stairs even more difficult than the others were. In just the thirty seconds that they’ve stopped moving, the water’s been bubbling up through the slats in the metal stairs and has begun to creep up their shins.

“We’re six floors down, shouldn’t take to long to-” Bucky’s cut off by the low groan that comes from Sam. Quickly pulling away from him he scans his teammate’s body for injury. “Hold on, I think Wilson’s hurt.”

“God dammit…” Sam sighs, looking exhausted and a little worse for wear after taking out nearly forty agents by himself and then running up fourteen flights of stairs at top speed. “You’re never gonna let me live this down. I’m stuck.”

“You’re stuck??”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Stuck how?!”

“My foot. It got stuck through the railing. I can’t pull it back out,” Sam admits, a sheepish look on his face as he struggles to jerk himself free.

Bucky looks down and sure enough, once he squats down and feels through the opaque water, it’s obvious with the way his ankle is swollen that he isn’t going to fit back through the rail. Cursing under his breath, he glances back up to Sam who’s staring back down at him, apology clear on his face as he tries to catch his breath.

“It’s a good thing you’re pretty ‘cause you’re starting to be more trouble than you’re worth,” Bucky mumbles as he tries to get leverage on the bars to either side of Sam’s ankle. 

“What’s going on? Do you have an ETA?” Steve’s voice comes through the comms like an afterthought as Bucky continues to struggle with keeping his head above the rapidly rising water and prying the bars apart. 

“When the boat shook we got thrown around. My foot got stuck through the railing then twisted wrong when I was nearly thrown right over it,” Sam explains as he pulls a flashlight from his belt to toss to Bucky as he works. “Soldier’s having a hard time getting me out and the water ain’t going nowhere but up.”

“Do you need an assist?” Tony asks, his repulsors slowly flaring back to life. “I can get down there in five minutes flat.

“Don’t got five minutes,” Bucky grunts, standing up and shaking the sea water out of his eyes. It’s up to their waists now and Sam’s trying to jerk his foot back through again. “I’ve got this. Now stop, before you take your foot off.”

Sam didn’t outright say sorry, but it was obvious in his eyes, the guilt and panic he felt as he took the flashlight back from Bucky and positioned it above the water. “Buck, I’m s-”

“Don’t. I can do this,” Bucky insists, holding eye contact with Sam a few moments more before gathering all his breath and plunging into the freezing water that had been slinking up to their chests.

It would’ve knocked the breath out of him if he hadn’t been used to much worse conditions in the past. Still, the salt water stings his eyes and the chill of it sinks deep into his bones in a way he knows will persist for days. The light from the flashlight is just enough for him to make out Sam’s trapped leg and the bars keeping it there. Wedging the toe of his own boots between the bars, he finds enough leverage to finally bend the steel bars open enough for him to slip his foot free.

Both of them surface, gasping for air and swimming towards where the remaining stairs are visible from the top of the water. Sam’s grimacing as he kicks with his injured leg and Bucky pulls the other man’s arm over his shoulders as they start tugging themselves out of the still rising ocean.

“Falcon’s ankle is fucked. Have the first aid kit ready for when we get up there,” Bucky pants as he tries to continue up the stairs at the pace they were going while helping Sam hobble along. 

“Kit’s ready and waiting. Just both of you get back in one piece, okay?” Natasha’s voice is cool and calculated, not betraying any of the worry Bucky knows she’s hiding.

The ship creaks again, once more tossing bucky into the rail and then Sam on top of him.

“The bow is nearly completely out of the water. I can’t push it back down without risking the structural integrity of the rest of the boat,” Tony informs them all. “We need to be wheels up in five minutes at the most.”

“Got it,” Bucky groans. It’s time to reevaluate his game plan. There’s no way they’re going to make it into the quinjet with Sam limping up the stairs like this. “Get on my back, we’re not gonna make it at this pace.”

“Man, really? Never gonna live this down,” Sam repeats, but otherwise has no arguments to wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck and letting him hoist him up into a probably ridiculous looking piggy back ride. It was slower than their earlier pace, but they managed to finally ascend the last of the stairs. Busting through the heavy iron doors and onto the top deck, the sunlight nearly makes Bucky flinch back. Sam groans from somewhere over his shoulder.

“We can’t wait any longer! The jet’s gonna start sliding across the deck if we don’t pull up,” Clint yells. Bucky can see the quinjet from here. It’s on the other end of the deck, the end that’s pointing higher into the sky the more water fills the hull and drags it deep into the depths. There’s no way he can run the both of them across that distance in time.

“Fuck,” Bucky curses, gently setting Sam back down with a hand on his hip to steady him. “Can you fly?”

“Sure, my pack is supposed to be watertight so there shouldn’t be any issue getting up in the air. What’re you thinking?”

“Go ahead and lift off, Barton. We’ll meet you halfway,” Bucky barks into the comms before wrapping his arms around Sam’s neck, almost mirroring the position they’d been in moments before.

“Well, hey there, Soldier,” Sam chuckles, raising a brow at his teammate as his arms come up to tentatively rest on his hips. “No need to get fresh, there’s enough of me to go around.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Wilson,” The soldier resolutely ignores the heat he can feel warming his face. At least it combats the cold. “Fly us up to meet the quinjet before this piece of shit cracks in half like the goddamn Titanic.”

“Alright, fine. As long as you promise me you’ll never let go, Jack,” Sam grins as he flicks his wings out and grips Bucky tight as they launch into the air.

“Barnes is ancient, he’s not going to get that joke,” Tony snarks, in the distance Bucky can see his suit zipping over to the hovering quinjet and veer inside through the loading doors.

“I’ve watched the fucking Titanic movie, Stark,” Bucky barks back, making Sam laugh in his ear as they soar towards the jet. He buries his face in the space between his arm and Sam’s neck to hide the small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. In his defense, it’s hard to keep a straight face when he’s in the guys arms like this.

The moment, as nice as it is, doesn’t last. Halfway between the quickly sinking ship and the quinjet, Sam’s pack starts smoking and emitting an awful, soul-crushing grinding noise. Bucky’s stomach drops as they drop for a half second before he can get them back on course. 

“I thought you said this thing could get us in the air!” Bucky leans back to glare in Sam’s face accusingly. Forgetting any soft thoughts he’d been thinking about the man a moment ago.

“I said I could get us in the air! Not that I could keep us there!” Sam grunted, struggling under the added weight of his teammate and the way it affected his normal flight pattern. “You’re too heavy!”

“What, like you were a treat to lug up all those stairs??” Bucky growls back.

“Would you two idiots just get in the jet?” Steve groans from where he’s watching this disaster unfold from the landing dock.

Bucky is getting ready to let Steve know where he can shove his unwanted comments when the jetpack chokes and sputters a second time, shaking Bucky from where he’d been clinging to Sam. Rushing air whizzing past his ears, it was only his super soldier reflexes that gave him the forethought to reach out and grab onto Sam’s good ankle at the last second.

“Stark! Suit up again!” Steve’s yelling, rushing back into the quinjet to go get the man.

“No! I’ve got this!” Sam grits out. It’s a strain on the already struggling pack on his back and it takes three more jerks before Bucky’s tentative grasp is shaken and he’s once again falling through the air, this time without a hope of grabbing onto anything except for the heavy concrete deck he’s quickly approaching.

“Sam!!” He yells out, reaching out to him, and it’s all so eerily familiar in ways he doesn’t want to think too heavily about. Bucky’s so deep in his head, hoping the botched super serum in his blood will help him in his landing at least one more time, that he barely notices when Sam dives down towards him. It isn’t until Sam’s swooped over and wrapped both arms around him that Bucky gets out of his own circling thoughts. Bucky gasps, arms automatically coming up to grip Sam tight as they veer up sharply and make a mad dash to the entrance of the quinjet. The pack is fully smoking now, but Sam puts as much power into it as he can to bridge that last gap. 

Their entrance is less than graceful, Bucky taking the brunt of their landing as his back hits the floor and knocks what little breath was left in his lungs out. Sam’s on top of him, groaning as his wings fold back in and his pack whines pathetically with one last puff of smoke.

“I promise it was supposed to be waterproof,” Sam chuckles breathlessly. “But it was built for the desert so I’m not sure it was top priority.”

“I was falling,” Is the only thing Bucky can force out, his voice rough and his grip on Sam unwavering.

Sam’s smile decreased in size but nearly doubled in warmth as he stared back down at Bucky, hand sliding up to rest gently against one flushed cheek. “Yeah, but I caught you, didn’t I?”

Maybe it was the combination of the icy water still dripping from his uniform, or the not so distant memory of falling from such a high distance for the third time in his life. Or maybe it was because those stairs had tired him out just a little bit more than he let on, but he could swear Sam was leaning in closer. And Bucky was only human. He leaned into Sam’s hand and leaned up to meet him halfway. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sam’s eyes this up close before. Never seen the way the fading sunlight turns gorgeous dark eyes to a near fiery orange that warms him up from the inside out. It would be the easiest thing in the world to seal the last millimeter of distance between them, but-

“I’ve got the first aid kit, are you two alright??” Steve burst back in from the cockpit like a bull in a china shop. Shattering whatever small moment of peace the two Avengers had found, however briefly.

Bucky let his head fall back with a groan as Sam rolled off from where’d he been laying on top of him.

“Great timing, Steve.”

“Yeah, thanks, punk.”

“Huh? What? What did I do? What’s going on?”

**Author's Note:**

> This quote ran away from me! I think these prompts are supposed to be quick writing exercises meant to jumpstart your brain, but this one took off. In my defense I really do adore writing mid-battle banter. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
